Whites are taught to see their perspectives as objective and
representative of reality15. The belief in objectivity, coupled with
positioning white people as outside of culture (and thus the norm for
humanity), allows whites to view themselves as universal humans who can
represent all of human experience. This is evidenced through an
unracialized identity or location, which functions as a kind of
blindness; an inability to think about Whiteness as an identity or as a
“state” of being that would or could have an impact on one’s life. In
this position, Whiteness is not recognized or named by white people, and
a universal reference point is assumed. White people are just people.
Within this construction, whites can represent humanity, while people of
color, who are never just people but always most particularly black
people, Asian people, etc., can only represent their own racialized
experiences16.

The discourse of universalism functions similarly to the discourse of
individualism but instead of declaring that we all need to see each
other as individuals (everyone is different), the person declares that
we all need to see each other as human beings (everyone is the same). Of
course we are all humans, and I do not critique universalism in general,
but when applied to racism, universalism functions to deny the
significance of race and the advantages of being white. Further,
universalism assumes that whites and people of color have the same
realities, the same experiences in the same contexts (i.e. I feel
comfortable in this majority white classroom, so you must too), the same
responses from others, and assumes that the same doors are open to all.
Acknowledging racism as a system of privilege conferred on whites
challenges claims to universalism.

At the same time that whites are taught to see their interests and
perspectives as universal, they are also taught to value the individual
and to see themselves as individuals rather than as part of a racially
socialized group. Individualism erases history and hides the ways in
which wealth has been distributed and accumulated over generations to
benefit whites today. It allows whites to view themselves as unique and
original, outside of socialization and unaffected by the relentless
racial messages in the culture. Individualism also allows whites to
distance themselves from the actions of their racial group and demand to
be granted the benefit of the doubt, as individuals, in all cases. A
corollary to this unracialized identity is the ability to recognize
Whiteness as something that is significant and that operates in society,
but to not see how it relates to one’s own life. In this form, a white
person recognizes Whiteness as real, but as the individual problem of
other “bad” white people17.

Given the ideology of individualism, whites often respond defensively
when linked to other whites as a group or “accused” of collectively
benefiting from racism, because as individuals, each white person is
“different” from any other white person and expects to be seen as such.
This narcissism is not necessarily the result of a consciously held
belief that whites are superior to others (although that may play a
role), but a result of the white racial insulation ubiquitous in
dominant culture18; a general white inability to see non-white
perspectives as significant, except in sporadic and impotent reflexes,
which have little or no long-term momentum or political
usefulness19.

Whites invoke these seemingly contradictory discourses—we are either all
unique or we are all the same—interchangeably. Both discourses work to
deny white privilege and the significance of race. Further, on the
cultural level, being an individual or being a human outside of a racial
group is a privilege only afforded to white people. In other words,
people of color are almost always seen as “having a race” and described
in racial terms (“the black man”) but whites rarely are (“the man”),
allowing whites to see themselves as objective and non-racialized. In
turn, being seen (and seeing ourselves) as individuals outside of race
frees whites from the psychic burden of race in a wholly racialized
society. Race and racism become their problems, not ours. Challenging
these frameworks becomes a kind of unwelcome shock to the system.

The disavowal of race as an organizing factor, both of individual white
consciousness and the institutions of society at large, is necessary to
support current structures of capitalism and domination, for without it,
the correlation between the distribution of social resources and
unearned white privilege would be evident20. The existence of structural
inequality undermines the claim that privilege is simply a reflection of
hard work and virtue. Therefore, inequality must be hidden or justified
as resulting from lack of effort21. Individualism accomplishes both of
these tasks. At the same time, the individual presented as outside these
relations cannot exist without its disavowed other. Thus, an essential
dichotomy is formed between specifically raced others and the
unracialized individual. Whites have deep investments in race, for the
abstract depends on the particular22; they need raced others as the
backdrop against which they may rise23. Exposing this dichotomy
destabilizes white identity.